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Veterinary students to benefit from multi-million dollar facility.
Veterinary students at Texas A&M will soon have a new home for equine science education, research and outreach. At a total cost of $80 million, phase 1 of construction began in October. Planning for the new center began in May 2012 when the Texas A&M Board of Regents approved negotiation of a ground lease with an anonymous donor that allowed for construction to begin. Initial construction will include an education and outreach center, facilities for the Texas A&M Equestrian Team, a cross country course in collaboration with Texas A&M Athletics, and new facilities for the Parsons Mounted Cavalry.
With a long history of teaching, research, equine medicine, and outreach, Texas A&M has been a vital contributor to the equine industry for generations. Both the Department of Animal Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences have been instrumental in providing the equine industry with knowledge and care that have advanced not only equine sciences, but the welfare of the horse as well. The Texas A&M Equine Initiative was created to collaboratively utilize existing expertise within the university to build an equine program that will graduate the industry's future leaders and generate research and veterinary medical care that will improve the industry and the care and welfare of the horse. To support its mission, the Equine Initiative has developed four major imperatives. In each of these areas, the focus will be to enhance and improve upon Texas A&M's existing strengths. The four imperatives are curriculum enhancement, outreach & engagement expansion, facility construction and partnership development.


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While doing research for last week's post on Vera Zorina, I discovered another interesting name: Tanaquil (pronounced tan-a-keel).
It belonged to French-born American ballerina Tanaquil "Tanny" Le Clercq (1929-2000) who, like Zorina, had been married to famous choreographer George Balanchine.
Tanaquil Le Clercq was named after the legendary Etruscan prophet Tanaquil, whose omen-reading abilities helped her husband become the fifth king of Rome (616-578 B.C.).
The Etruscan rendering of the name Tanaquil is "Thanachvil" (or "Thancvil").
The Etruscan language has long been extinct, so we don't know the etymology of Thanchvil, but it could mean "gift of Thana" (a combination of the name of the Etruscan goddess Thana/Thalna with the Etruscan word cvil, thought to mean "gift, offering").
The Etruscans had a relatively small pool of first names (praenomina) to draw from, so it's possible that many Etruscan females were named Thanachvil. In fact, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has in its collection a sarcophagus lid (dated 350–300 B.C.) depicting married couple Larth Tetnies (husband) and Thanchvil Tarnai (wife).
But, getting back to Tanny Le Clercq…
Tragically, her professional career was cut short when she was stricken with polio in 1956 at age 27. She was paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of her life.
The "stranger-than-fiction twist" is that, at age 15, she had actually danced the part of a polio victim at a March of Dimes benefit, and Balanchine had danced the part of polio itself:
In the final movement — a sunny allegro — she reappeared in a wheelchair, children tossed dimes, and she rose and danced again. What at the time was a simple exercise in entertaining a charity audience acquired in retrospect the weight of an omen or a hex. Balanchine, who was deeply mystical, was haunted by the notion that he had somehow brought on her fate.
Makes the fact that she was named after a noted omen-reader seem rather foreboding, doesn't it?
- Bonfante, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
- Brubach, Holly. "Dancing Around the Truth." New York Times 15 Feb. 2012.
- "New Movie Documents Famed Ballet Dancer Felled By Polio." WBUR 18 Feb. 2014.
- Tanaquil Le Clercq – Ballet Encyclopedia
Image: Adapted from Sarcophagus and lid with husband and wife (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

subset: commoncrawl


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Private fertility treatment
The cost of private treatment
Fertility treatment prices can vary from clinic to clinic.
The final cost of your treatment will depend on a number of factors. Ask your clinic for a personalised, costed treatment plan before beginning any treatment and for regular cost updates as your treatment progresses.
Varying prices of clinics and treatment
Private clinics set their own prices for treatment - and these do vary from clinic to clinic.
When discussing prices with clinics, it's important to find out exactly what the price includes. Some may include consultation fees and any recommended tests in their overall price, others may not. Some clinics may offer some free counselling, and others may charge for this.
Fertility drugs are usually an extra cost and can be very expensive
The cost of your treatment may also change as your treatment progresses. If you do not respond well to one type of drug, your doctor may prescribe another at a different cost.
If the type of treatment you require changes, for example. from an IUI cycle to IVF, the costs will also change.
Costed treatment plans
Clinics often ask patients to pay some of the costs before their treatment starts. A costed treatment plan can help you understand how these costs are calculated.
Ask your clinic to give you a personalised, costed treatment plan which details the specific treatments and procedures you require including, for example, scans, tests and drugs.
Your clinic should also give you regular cost updates as your treatment progresses or changes.
If you don't understand what a particular charge is for or how it is calculated, ask your clinic to explain.
Treatment packages
Many clinics charge one price for a treatment 'package' which includes the basic consultations, scans, tests and procedures needed for treatment.
Exactly what is included varies from clinic to clinic and the 'package' price may not be the final amount you actually pay. Treatment packages do not always include drugs and you may need additional scans, tests or procedures.
Changing your treatment package - cancellations, refunds and conversions
If your treatment has to be stopped or your doctor advises that you change the type of treatment you need, you may receive a refund or pay a 'conversion' fee.
The amount will vary, depending on how far into your cycle you are and whether additional scans or tests are required.
Other fees and costs
Some clinics include the items shown below in your treatment package, others charge for each item separately.
Whichever way your clinic calculates the cost, ask your clinic for a costed treatment plan which will help you understand how the cost of your treatment is worked out.
Medical reports - A charge may be levied for copying and/or preparing these.
Consultations -Your initial consultation with a fertility doctor is usually longer than subsequent consultations and so may cost more. The consultation fee may also include the cost of initial tests and scans.
You may have other consultations during the course of your treatment,for example, for test results, with a nurse, or via telephone.
Counselling - Counselling is an important part of your treatment and most clinics include at least one counselling session in their treatment package. The length of the session is also reflected in the price.
Tests and scans - You will probably have a variety of scans and tests as part of your treatment. These may include tests for hormone levels, ultrasound scans or semen viability tests but there are many more.
Your clinician will tell you what tests and scans are appropriate for your particular circumstances.
Costs vary widely depending on the exact nature and complexity of the test or scan.
Monitored cycle - Your clinic may recommend that they monitor a treatment cycle to help them understand how your body is working. This will monitor, among other things, your hormone levels and time of ovulation.
Transportation and 'shipping' fees - If you need to transfer to another clinic, you may be charged a fee for specialist transport of your eggs, sperm or embryos. The final cost depends on the destination.


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Celebrating its 19th year, the 2017 Madison Home Expo is once again "the place to be" for the latest innovations, offerings and ideas in the home building and remodeling industries!
Held at the one-of-a-kind Monona Terrace Convention Center — the only convention center designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright — the 2017 Madison Home Expo will connect you to the area's leading remodelers, builders, and design professionals.
For three jam-packed days, you'll find wall-to-wall displays and exhibits on both floors. You'll also have the opportunity to speak directly with experts and receive helpful "insiders" advice to turn your dream home or other home improvement project into a reality.
You'll also learn the latest trends in design trends, product offerings, maintenance tips, and more on everything to do with kitchen and bath remodeling, roofing, flooring, home security, water conditioning, insulation, windows and exterior products, and much more. You'll also discover the latest landscaping options and strategies.
Special Expo Highlights
Here are some special events during the 2017 Madison Home Expo that you won't want to miss:
Experience the Legendary Monona Terrace
As one of Madison's – and the country's – most beloved architectural masterpieces, the legendary Monona Terrace is a stunning lakeside complex designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Come and immerse yourself in a unique piece of architectural history!
New and Exciting Seminars
In addition to a completely refreshed seminar line-up featuring the latest information and ideas, this year's Expo offers new and exciting seminars covering everything from cabinet re-facing, to panelized and component homes, and much more.
American Institute of Architects (AIA) Seminars
AIA Wisconsin, which is based in Madison, will be presenting seminars and speaking about building processes and architectural design. Since 1911, the AIA has been the leading professional membership association for licensed architects, emerging professionals, and allied partners.
Exclusive Coupons
Many exhibitors have provided us with a great collection of new coupons, which you can conveniently print out and use to enjoy special, expo-only discounts. To print your coupons, please clickhere.
See You in January!
Be sure to mark the 2017 Madison Home Expo, January 6-8 at the Monona Terrace Convention Center, on your calendar.
It's the ideal opportunity for meet and interact with hundreds of exhibitors and discover thousands of new ideas. This all-encompassing event will help put you on the path towards turning your dream home into a reality!


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06 28, 2013 by Fuel Fix
Old offshore oil platforms may be able to hang around in the Gulf of Mexico longer for fish and fishermen to enjoy, thanks to a federal overhaul of removal policies.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has revised the policies to encourage participation in its rigs-to-reefs program, which allows operators to leave non-producing platforms deep in the Gulf as a artificial homes for underwater creatures.
"This new policy gives states greater flexibility in using oil and gas infrastructure in their artificial reef programs," said David Smith, a spokesman for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, explaining that before the revision, operators sometimes were required to dismantle platforms and move them to an already authorized site. "Now, if a state and BSEE determine it is beneficial to keep a platform in place, the state can designate the area as a Special Artificial Reef Site."
The removal of a mandatory five mile buffer between rigs-to-reefs will be especially pertinent to the Texas coast. The Bureau initially created the restriction to prevent the platform reefs from being clustered too closely together and possibly disrupting future access ways for shipping or pipelines. But the Texas coastline includes miles of offshore waters that are too shallow for ships, and policymakers agreed to allow states, which assume liability for the platforms once they are adopted into the program, to decide on the locations for their reef structures.
Fishermen and environmentalists have encouraged the changes to allow more platforms to stay put, to avoid disrupting habitats for fish, coral, turtles and mussels that have flourished among the steel legs of the structures.
Less than 10 percent of about 800 non-producing Gulf of Mexico platforms have ended up in the program, while more than 200 have been removed each year since 2010. The new rules remove some of the geographic limitations and deadlines that made participation in the program challenging for operators.
"For the past several months, we have been working with our federal partners, state officials and affected stakeholders in the Gulf of Mexico region to learn about their needs," said James Watson, director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, in a written statement. "This policy is reflective of the feedback we received. It provides states greater flexibility in their planning and addresses the multiple uses for these areas while ensuring the marine environment is protected."
Federal regulations require offshore oil and gas operators to remove non-producing platforms under an "idle iron" rule that was developed following the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010.
Operators can bypass the requirement if they participate in rigs-to-reefs, provided that they remove all hazardous materials from a structure, and, if required, dismantle and tow it to a designated area. States assume liability for structures accepted into the program.
Houston-based Apache, among the operators that have campaigned for rule changes they say will increase participation, expressed approval of the revisions.
"We think it is a step in the right direction," said John Roper, a spokesman for Apache. "The policy changes give us more flexibility and will hopefully provide more opportunities to reef platforms."
Jan 26, 2024 | LMOGA
Dec 28, 2023 | LMOGA
Oct 18, 2023 | by LMOGA
Sep 29, 2023 | LMOGA


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A few days after an article about cookbook ghostwriters ran in the New York Times Dining section, Gwyneth Paltrow took to Twitter to deny that she'd had a ghostwriter for hers, My Father's Daughter: Delicious Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness. The article's author, Julia Moskin, identified Julia Turshen as Paltrow's ghost not only for that book, but for a second forthcoming title that will bear only Paltrow's name on the cover, and she quotes Turshen in the article about her work on the actress's books.
A week later, Paltrow appeared on the Rachael Ray show via Skype, still insisting she had no help. Ray has similarly refuted Moskin's Times article. She told Eater.com: "In well over a decade of writing recipes for many cookbooks, television shows, and magazines, I have not now nor have I ever employed a ghostwriter. I simply don't use them."
I wasn't there when Paltrow and Ray did or didn't write their cookbooks, but as a ghostwriter myself, who has dealt with a client denial, I have a hunch about what happened at least in the case of Paltrow, for which there is more information to sift through.
The way Turshen is quoted in the article, the detail with which she is introduced, the fact that on her website Turshen lists the book as something she's worked on, and that she wrote an essay about working with Paltrow on her cookbook for Food & Wine magazine all give me the impression that Julia Moskin got it right, or pretty close to right, and that Paltrow's denial is rooted in problems of semantics and misundersanding. I sense Paltrow believes that because the stories and recipes in the book were hers, even if Turshen did the editorial heavy lifting, she didn't serve exactly as a ghost, and therefore Paltrow should be credited alone.
"Ghostwriter" is a problematic word. It gives people the idea that we have some kind of other worldly power; that we're able to hover over clients somewhere in the ether and read their minds, then write their books using only our own words. But it's nothing like that, at least not for me. That's where misunderstandings arise.
In her denial, Paltrow tweeted, "I wrote every word myself." The thing is, even if she did write every single word that made it into the book, it doesn't mean she didn't have the help of a ghostwriter or co-author whatever you want to call us.
In my work I never simply interview a person and then write their book using a whole different collection of words than they did. Typically, I use many of the same words that came out of their mouths, although likely in a different order, and surrounded by other words. I also move whole pieces of their narratives around for purposes of better storytelling. I remove boring expository chunks, and try to draw more interesting anecdotes from my clients to replace those – anecdotes they wouldn't have thought to include until I prompted them; anecdotes I still have to seriously rework and bring to life.
Another way I work is to get clients to "free-write" bits for me, without concerning themselves with spelling, grammar, sentence structure, or "sounding good." I have them do this because sometimes people are inclined to reveal more when they are in a room by themselves, writing privately, than when they are sitting and talking with some ghostwriter their agent or editor hired, whom they've just met. I find some clients also tend to remember and capture more details when they write things down and email them to me.
After I receive and rework the pieces they've written for me, I incorporate them with what came out of the transcriptions of our interviews. That synthesis is really hard work. Even if I were to use only words clients spoke and emailed to me, which is never the case, it would still take a lot of work to put those together in a way that yielded a book that's readable and interesting. It's a skill most ghostwriting clients – even the ones who can write beautiful letters and witty blog posts – don't have and rely on us for. Maybe don't realize falls under the heading of "ghostwriting." Which is to say, even though the stories are not our own, and many of the words come from our clients, we still do a great deal of work transforming those stories and words into books.
This is where a client might get confused. In her mind, if she's providing the stories, and I'm asking her to write, I'm somehow cheating or shirking my responsibilities, and she is no longer officially using me as a ghostwriter. Never mind that I'm neck deep in her manuscript, and I will be the one to piece it together, rearranging everything many times, creating transitions, finessing the order and wording again and again before turning it in. Even with chunks penned by the client, it's still the same job for me. Actually, it can be an even harder job, especially when the client gets attached to problematic sentences she's crafted and resists having them reworked, or insists on retaining sections that don't move the story along.
So maybe Paltrow uttered or typed every one of the words in her cookbook. But I strongly doubt she strung them all together as they stand in the book without a great deal of Turshen's hard work. Maybe "ghostwriting" is the wrong name for Turshen's role. Maybe it's the wrong label for this work, altogether, although I'm at a loss for a replacement that accurately describes taking raw verbal matter and transforming it first into rough jigsaw pieces, then smoothing and arranging those into a patchwork, and finally weaving it all into a seamless tapestry.
At the very least, it seems to me the book was a collaboration between Turshen and Paltrow. But it's probably stipulated in Turshen's contract that she can't claim to have worked on it. That's pretty standard – what ghostwriting is about – even though many people know that most celebrity books are not written by the celebrities themselves. That's probably what Turshen assumed when she agreed to give Moskin an interview.
I hope Turshen is not penalized financially or otherwise for this potential breech of contract. It's lousy enough having Gwyneth publicly deny her work on the book. I know that feeling. It's happened to me.
No one goes into ghostwriting for the acclaim. You do it because it's a flexible job, it pays at least decently (sometimes well), and because it can actually be gratifying to help someone who's not really a writer tell his moving story. For the most part, I am happy to stay behind the scenes. While some writers accept a "with" credit on the cover, I never put my name on anyone else's book.
I tend to think of myself more as a "memoir midwife," as one client called me. Sometimes it feels akin to what I imagine being a surrogate mother is like.
The point is, in the end, I am ultimately delivering someone else's story, not my own creation. And so I don't think it makes sense to put my name on it.
Instead, it's often written in my contract that I must receive the first acknowledgement, and that it must be worded in such a way that people in publishing will easily decipher what my role was. The acknowledgement usually reads something like, "I'd like to thank Sari Botton for helping me find the words."
(Turshen's acknowledgement in Paltrow's book is more oblique about her editorial contributions: "I literally could not have written this book without the tireless, artful assistance of Julia Turshen. She quantified, tested, and retested every recipe, oversaw the production of the photos, helped brainstorm in a crisis, and, above all, was my intellectual and emotional support through the whole process.")
Going otherwise unnamed is fine with me. It's inherently not my ghostwriting clients' job to publicize the work I did for them. By the same token, it's not okay for an author to go to such lengths to vehemently deny having had help that she disparages her ghostwriter in the process.
One client of mine falsely insisted in interviews that she'd fired her ghostwriter after she'd found the first chapter to be unsatisfactory. She claimed she then wrote the book all by herself in five weeks.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. I labored hard on that one, especially since we were "crashing it out" in just ten weeks, including the interviewing time.
I was advised to send that author a legal cease-and-desist letter to get her to stop "publicly retracting the acknowledgement stipulated in my contract." Later, when I got some distance from the incident, I realized her denial was consistent with others she'd made about having help in her life, from the first time I interviewed her.
We talked in her living room that day about, among other things, why she couldn't imagine putting her son on a special diet. "Tonight, I'm making spaghetti for the whole family," she said. "I can't imagine what he'd do if he couldn't have any of it."
When we wrapped up interviewing at about 6 pm, we walked into her kitchen. There, in front of the stove, was a woman in an apron, already making spaghetti. "Oh my god," I thought, "my client thinks she's making spaghetti even though her hired help is clearly doing it."
I get it now. She doesn't like to admit to accepting help with things. No one does. Celebrities – especially those who went to fancy prep schools in Manhattan, as Paltrow did – perceive a stigma associated with needing a ghostwriter, even though they might not have experience writing books. Besides, what's the point of having a secret ghostwriter if you have to talk about it publicly?
When I read my client's false claim that I'd been fired, I cried. And then I thought about all the babysitters and nannies that in the book she denied having, as well. I figured they were all having a good cry, too.
Photos by Brian Macaluso.


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CISUS: an integrated 3D ultrasound system for IGT using a modular tracking API.
(Galloway, Jr., R. L., Ed.).Medical Imaging 2004: Visualization, Image-Guided Procedures, and Display. 5367, 247-256. Boctor2004a.pdf (536.92 KB)
(2004). CIS-UltraCal: an open-source ultrasound calibration toolkit.
Medical Imaging 2005: Ultrasonic Imaging and Signal Processing. 5750, 516-523. Kon2005.pdf (200.67 KB)
(2005). Bootstrapped ultrasound calibration.
Studies in health technology and informatics. 119, 61–66.
(2006). Beam Steering Approach for Speckle Characterization and Out-of-Plane Motion Estimation in Real Tissue.
Procedings IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium. 781–784. Rivaz2007.pdf (902.82 KB)
(2007). Ablation monitoring with elastography: 2D in-vivo and 3D ex-vivo studies.
Medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention (MICCAI). 11, 458–466. Rivaz2008b_0.pdf (7.26 MB)


text: Flaum Eye Institute / LASIK & Advanced Vision Correction / Technology / Contrast Sensitivity Contrast Sensitivity During the pre-operative evaluation we'll test your contrast sensitivity with a special eye chart that has light gray letters on the bright background. When people speak about vision, they often refer to what they can see using "20/20" notation. Eye doctors refer to this as "Snellen Acuity" after the Dutch doctor who developed the eye test chart in the mid-1800's. This method to measure vision can be thought of as a measure of the "quantity" of what you can see, but it doesn't reflect the "quality" of what you can see. Contrast sensitivity is a better measure of "quality" or crispness of vision. In its most basic terms, contract sensitivity describes our ability to detect subtle differences between objects that are not black and white. Contrast can be "high" like a black dog in a snowy field on a sunny day or the standard Snellen Chart or it can be low, like a white rabbit in that same snowy field or a person wearing a dark coat walking along the side of the road at dusk. Our ability to detect contrast is best when there is very bright lighting and it decreases as the light becomes dimmer. Most of our world falls in the medium to low contrast range. This is why Snellen charts do not always give the best measure of how well we can actually see. Many of the visual problems that you hear about as being negatives with regard to refractive surgery are related to changes in contrast sensitivity. It is well known that refractive surgery causes a temporary mild decrease in contrast sensitivity immediately after surgery. This is due to the normal swelling and healing of the cornea. It tends to resolve significantly within the first few weeks after surgery and recovers to near-normal in the first few months. Certain factors can result in more persistent losses in contrast sensitivity. These include treatment using older broad beam lasers, treating an area of the cornea that is too small as compared to the size of the pupil under dim light and the presence of significant higher order optical aberrations, which are very subtle imperfections in the visual system. During your pre-operative evaluation at Flaum Eye Institute Refractive Surgery Center, we'll carefully measure your pupil size, analyze the subtle optics of your visual system and test your contrast sensitivity with a special eye chart that has light gray letters on the bright background. If we feel that significant contrast sensitivity problems could develop after treatment, we might recommend customized ablation with the Bausch and Lomb Zyoptix system or we might recommend that no treatment be performed at all. The use of contrast sensitivity testing by the Flaum Eye Institute Refractive Surgery Center team allows us to detect subtle nuances about your vision, making refractive surgery safer for our patients.


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Google has been accused in a lawsuit of illegally tracking the movements of millions of iPhone and Android phone users even when they use a privacy setting to prevent it.
According to a complaint filed last week, Google falsely assures people they won't be tracked if they turn the "Location History" feature on their phones to "off," and instead violates their privacy by monitoring and storing their movements.
"Google represented that a user 'can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.' This simply was not true," the complaint filed in San Francisco federal court said.
The plaintiff, Napoleon Patacsil of San Diego, is seeking class-action status on behalf of U.S. users of Android phones and Apple iPhones who turned the tracking feature off.
He is seeking unspecified damages for Google's alleged intentional violations of California privacy laws, and intrusion into people's private affairs.
The alleged tracking by the unit of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet was described in an 13 August Associated Press article, which said it was confirmed by computer science researchers at Princeton University.
Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Michael Sobol, a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein representing Patacsil, did not immediately respond to similar requests.
Patacsil claimed that Google illegally tracked him on his Android phone and later on his iPhone, where he had downloaded some Google apps.
He said Google's "principal goal" was to "surreptitiously monitor" phone users and let third parties do the same.
The help section of Google's website now says that turning Location History off "does not affect other location services" in phones, and that some location data may be saved through other services, such as Search and Maps.
The case is Patacsil v Google Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 18-05062.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.


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Perdomo cigars....20 years and going strong.
When it comes to offering true, unadulterated, Nicaraguan cigars....none do it better than Perdomo. Each Perdomo handmade truly exemplifies the raw, satisfying flavors Nicaraguan tobaccos have to offer, and when combined with Perdomo's characteristic, top-notch quality control standards and attention to detail, each Perdomo cigar delivers a full-flavored experience that's second to none. For 20 years, Perdomo cigars have set the standard for Nicaraguan handmades, let alone high-end super-premiums as a whole.
Perdomo 20th Anniversary celebrates this rich, family history of Nicaraguan handmades. Each cigar employs bold, Cuban-seed long-fillers grown throughout Nicaragua's black, volcanic soils. Top-priming tobaccos from Esteli, Jalapa, and Condega....patiently aged and skillfully blended to perfection. But then there's the wrapper. Where the fun really happens. Nicaraguan, Cuban-seed sun-grown wrappers from the highest priming, extra-fermented, cedar-aged, then barrel-aged in old bourbon barrels for 14+ months prior to being applied. A gentle box-press is the finishing touch to this impressive Nicaraguan puro. A tremendous effort delivering a gracefully bold and complex bouquet with each cigar. Smooth, creamy notes of earth, coffee, and leather coat the palate as soft hints of pepper complete each puff. The strength gradually builds during the slow burn, completing a satisfying and incredibly well-made premium from the Perdomo family.
Perdomo 20th Anniversary Sun Grown received a well-deserved, 91-point rating, noting: "A bulky Churchill with a clean, oily wrapper. Leather notes and sweet cedar complement nutty flavors and spices that culminate in a brown sugar finish."
Ohhh....Perdomo 20th also won Cigar Journals 2013 award for best value cigar.
For a limited time, enjoy a Perdomo 4-Finger Ashtray (worth $60) for just $5 more with any qualifying Perdomo box purchase!
I was playing golf with another cigar smoker and I really liked the aroma of his cigar so I asked him what he was smoking. It was a Perdomo and he suggested I try the 20th Anniversary Sun Grown. What a great find. The 54 ring gauge really feels nice to the touch and I would say a medium tightness. A wonderful, full bodied smoked, burns evenly, and a superb flavor that I can only describe as just right. I bought a five pack to start and now it is a staple in my humidor!
I saw Nick Perdomo, shook hands and enjoyed a new 20th Anniversary Sun Grown with him. I was immediately sold on it and bought a box. I smoke Perdomo 10th Anniversary Champagne regularly and purchase them from CI or Nicks Hialeah Florida factory when I am snowbird down in South Florida. Thank you Nick for adding another fine Perdomo cigar to my box.
Do not mess around...drop everything and get some of these amazing stogies. As usual Perdomo has produced a perfect cigar again, and if you have pleasant memories of the perfect cigar experience, these will match or exceed your experience...ENJOY THESE MF's...in my opinion Perdomo has the most excellent array of fine cigars out there...AMEN!
I'm on my balcony right now with a 20th Anniversary toro in my hand. I'd almost forgotten how good they are! Smooth draw, great burn, and a thick, full-bodied flavor…Delicious!
The Perdomo 20th Anniversary Sun Grown is an amazing cigar. If you like higher end sticks for a reasonable price, this Perdomo is the cigar for you. Lots a flavor with an excellent burn from start to finish.
I purchased the box sampler and smoked the robusto size today. As expected from Perdomo products, no disappointments. Very nice to look at, hold and enjoy. The 54 rg was large for me but smoked incredibly well. I smoke about one cigar a day, and today's treat was a very enjoyable event. I had all I wanted from this size and I am trying to calculate how I am going to handle the larger sizes I have left. Maybe a two day cigar? These are great and are worth the asking price. They (CI) also put the robusto on the Jam occasionally> Get some.
I was in the walk in humidor of one of my local shops a few months ago trying to decide on something new to try. The shop owner came in and we discussed my taste preferences and he recommended this cigar. I bought a Churchill, went home and smoked it the same day. What a phenominal cigar! The wrapper is beautiful, the texture is somewhere between firm and soft, and the burn was absolutely perfect. By the end of the day I was back in the shop purchasing a box. The flavors that are produced by the Perdomo Sungrown are something I would expect in a stick selling for $15 - $18 each. I have been slowly depleting my stash smoking one a week. When I get down to a few left, you can bet I will be replacing them with another stack.
To me the great thing about this cigar is the combination of full and complex Nicaraguan flavors and yet an exeptional smoothness all the way to the nub. I have only come across this combination twice before, in My Father and in Padron Anniversary.
The Perdomo 20th sun grown is a beautiful cigar. The construction is solid with a slight box press to it. Upon first lighting the cigar lights up the palate with spice and a slight creaminess that is very subtle. Notes of cedar and light leather coat the palate. The ash is solid and the draw is perfect. I've smoked all the Perdomo lines and this is my favorite behind the habano corojo line. Enjoy this cigar with coffee or fine scotch in the afternoon. Truly enjoyable!


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Here's the latest installment in my series on The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly. As you may remember, in order to make it on this list, the web tool has to:
* be easily accessible to English Language Learners and/or non-tech savvy computer users.
* allow people to create engaging content within minutes.
* host the user's creation on the site itself indefinitely, and allow a direct link to be able to be posted on a student or teacher's website/blog to it (or let it be embedded). If it just provides the url address of the student creation, you can either just post the address or use Embedit.in , a free web tool that makes pretty much any url address embeddable.
* provide some language-learning opportunity.
* not require any registration.
You can find previous installments of this series with the rest of my "The Best…" lists at Websites Of The Year. Several hundred sites have been highlighted in these past lists. A number of them are examples of "viral marketing" by companies. You can read how I use these tools as language-learning activities in the article Samuel Jackson, My ESL Students, And Me.
Here are the newest:
CREATE A TALKING STORYBOOK ADVENTURE: You can personalize your own talking storybook at The Tale Of Despereaux: Storybook Adventure. After you answer a few questions, the site creates a personalized virtual "pop-up" book and provides a link to it.
SEND SOMEONE A "TIP": Career Builder has created a web tool called Anonymous Tip Giver. I'm not too thrilled with its intent — to send anonymous suggestions to better via an audio message — but it can be adapted for use as an English language learning activity. You first choose one of several strange-looking characters to deliver your message, and then can type in your message and choose the voice in which you want it spoken. You can also decide to record your own message with an 800 telephone number if you choose. Next, you can send it to the intended recipient anonymously, add your own name and email, or just get the url of your completed message to post on a student or teacher website/blog.
SEND AN ANIMAL E-CARD: The National Zoo at the Smithsonian has a great collection of E-Cards. Not only are there a lot to choose from, but finished cards are hosted by zoo's server and appear to stay there indefinitely.
CREATE A NEAT-LOOKING ESSAY OUTLINE: aMaps let you create a visualization of a basic essay form — state your position and provide reasons, along with examples. After completing a scaffolded outline, you're provided with a pretty neat looking visual picture of what you've developed, along with the embed code. You can also email the link to a friend or teacher for posting on a blog or website, and then people can respond to what you wrote.
As always, feedback is welcome.
If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.


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Massive coastal flooding in northern Europe that now occurs once every century could happen every year if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, according to a new study.
New projections considering changes in sea level rise, tides, waves and storm surge over the 21st century find global warming could cause extreme sea levels to increase significantly along Europe's coasts by 2100. Extreme sea levels are the maximum levels of the sea that occur during a major storm and produce massive flooding.
The increase in frequency of these events that are today considered exceptional will likely push existing coastal protection structures beyond their design limits, leaving a large part of Europe's coastal zones exposed to flooding, according to the study's authors.
"Unless we take different protection measures, 5 million people will be exposed to coastal flooding on an annual basis," said Michalis Vousdoukas, a coastal oceanographer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and the lead author of the new study published in Earth's Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
Northern Europe will see the strongest increase in extreme sea levels. Areas along the Mediterranean and the Black Sea could see these 100-year extreme sea level events several times a year. In the North Sea region, extreme sea levels could increase by nearly 1 meter (3 feet) under the worst-case scenario. The Atlantic coasts of the United Kingdom and Ireland could see similar increases in extreme sea levels, while lower but still considerable increases in extreme sea levels are projected for the Norwegian and Baltic seas.
Information about the number of people at risk from flooding can be used to determine how large the social and economic impact of these events will be, said Marta Marcos, a researcher at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies in Spain, who was not involved in the new study.
"In terms of adaptation strategies and policymaking, it is very relevant," she said.
Considering all components
The new research considers how all components that can influence extreme sea levels, including the mean sea level, tides, waves and storm surge, will be affected by climate change. The researchers used information about these different components to project changes in extreme sea levels by 2100 under different greenhouse gas scenarios. Using all of these components provides a more accurate projection of how extreme sea levels will change this century, according to the study's authors.
Under the most extreme scenario, where greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise throughout this century, extreme sea levels along Europe's coastlines could increase by 81 centimeters, or more than 2 ½ feet, on average, by 2100. That means 5 million Europeans who are currently under threat of flooding from extreme sea level events that occur every 100 years could face that same risk annually, according to the new study.
Even under a more moderate scenario where greenhouse gas emissions peak in 2040, 100-year extreme sea levels could increase by 57 centimeters, or nearly 2 feet, on average, by the end of the century, with these events occurring every few years, according to study's authors.
The changes in one of these components, wave energy flux, is detailed in a new study in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. That study finds that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the energy waves carry to the coast will change significantly around the world by the end of the century.
In the southern hemisphere, extreme waves could carry up to 30 percent more energy by 2100, according to the new study. This means stronger waves will become more frequent, and have a greater impact on the coast, said Lorenzo Mentaschi, also at the JRC and lead author of the GRL study. The new GRL study attributes the changes in wave energy to the intensification of weather patterns, like the Antarctic Oscillation, El-Nino Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation.
The new research will be provided to EU policymakers. The data will also be made public so it can be used by scientists, engineers and coastal managers.
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Materials provided by American Geophysical Union. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
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(Health.com) -- Prevention is the best cure for a hangover. The only way to avoid a pounding head and queasiness the morning after is to drink in moderation, or to stay away from alcohol entirely. But with all sorts of seasonal celebrations going on, it's easy to overindulge.
Alternating your drinks with water or another nonalcoholic beverage can help you slow down and stay hydrated. If you still wind up with a hangover, you may be inclined to try one of the many supposedly tried-and-true remedies that have been passed down through the ages.
Don't get your hopes up. Traditional hangover remedies are often ineffective, and some of them may actually make you feel worse.
Hair of the dog
Even though the thought of a Bloody Mary may appeal to you, a Virgin Mary is a much better choice the morning after.
"The worst thing to do is to have another drink," says Charles Cutler, M.D., an internist in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and the chair of the American College of Physician's board of governors.
The alcohol may temporarily take the edge off your symptoms but could hurt in the long run. Hangovers make you feel horrible because alcohol is toxic, Cutler explains, and you need to give your body a chance to recover. That morning drink could lead to an even worse hangover the following day.
Greasy breakfast
There's no scientific evidence that a heaping helping of bacon and eggs will ease hangover anguish, although many people swear by it. "Greasy food is just going to give you heartburn," says Cutler, who recommends sticking with easy-to-digest foods such as toast or cereal. "You want to get calories right back into your system."
Eat light and stay hydrated, agrees John Brick, Ph.D., an alcohol research scientist and author of "The Doctor's Hangover Handbook."
"No specific foods are recommended, although honey sandwiches are helpful to some people," Brick says. "[They're] easy to eat and digest."
Health.com: Surprising heartburn triggers
Alka-Seltzer turns 80 in 2011, and the famous fizzy medicine has probably been used to treat hangovers for nearly that long. In 2001, the company even introduced a Morning Relief formulation specifically for hangovers.
All Alka-Seltzer varieties contain sodium bicarbonate (also known as baking soda), which will help settle a queasy belly by neutralizing stomach acid. But other ingredients, notably aspirin and citric acid, may irritate your stomach after a night of heavy drinking.
Aspirin or ibuprofen
Over-the-counter painkillers can certainly help ease hangover headaches and the aches and pains you may feel elsewhere in your body after a night of heavy drinking.
But choose carefully. If you're a regular heavy drinker, you may have done some damage to the lining of your stomach, and taking aspirin or ibuprofen (such as Advil) can worsen this damage and even cause bleeding, Dr. Cutler warns.
Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is also risky for habitual drinkers, due to the potential for liver damage. Check with your doctor about a painkiller that's right for you.
Health.com: Being choosy about booze helps avoid hangover (to a point)
Hangover pills
There are lots of products out there that claim to prevent or cure hangovers -- such as Chaser, PreToxx, and RU 21 -- but there is very little scientific evidence that they will make you feel any better.
"Hangover pills that have been studied are not effective, or only help against a few complaints...but not all," says Joris C. Verster, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychopharmacology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who studies hangovers.
A 2005 review article in the journal "BMJ" identified eight peer-reviewed, placebo-controlled studies of hangover remedies, and concluded that "no compelling evidence exists" to support their use.
"What's in them either doesn't work, or if it has any benefit, you could buy it generically for probably a third of the price," says Cutler.
He suggests taking a multivitamin instead to restore the nutrients your body may have lost during a binge.
If you're a regular coffee drinker, skipping the java when you're hung over may -- or may not be -- a good idea, Brick says. You may wind up layering a pounding caffeine-withdrawal headache on top of your hangover woes if you miss your morning fix.
That said, caffeine narrows your blood vessels and boosts blood pressure. "Both of these may make the hangover worse," Brick says. "If you drink coffee regularly, you might try a very small amount in the morning. Wait 30 to 60 minutes and see how you feel."
Health.com: Coffee: Is it healthier than you think?
Water and sports drinks
Conventional wisdom holds that the dehydration caused by heavy drinking is what makes you feel so bad the next day.
In fact, experts actually know very little about what causes a hangover. Potential culprits include disrupted biological rhythms or even alcohol withdrawal, and research suggests that congeners -- toxic substances found in alcohol, especially dark liquors such as whiskey -- may also play a role.
Nevertheless, replacing the fluid you've lost will likely help you feel a little less miserable.
"Juice, water, Gatorade, all those things -- they're going to make you feel better," says Cutler.
A gentle workout might help you feel better, if you can manage it. (That's a big if.)
"Remember: If you've been drinking heavily, you could be a little dehydrated, you could be metabolically behind on your nutrition, and exercise is going to require hydration and nutrition," Cutler says. "Exercise is always the right thing to do, but I don't think [on] the morning you wake up with a hangover, exercise is what you need."
What you really need is rest, he adds.
Health.com: Cold or flu? How to know if you're too sick to work out
Think you can "sweat out" the alcohol and other toxins you may have consumed during a night of partying? Think again.
A sauna can cause potentially dangerous blood vessel and blood flow changes in your body. "The last thing you need is to disrupt the normal blood flow patterns by extreme heat," Cutler says.
If you're already somewhat dehydrated, excessive sweating can be harmful, and even deadly. Researchers from the Finnish State Alcohol Company's Research Laboratories in Helsinki warn that sauna bathing while hung over carries "real health risks," including dangerous drops in blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythms.
People sleep poorly after a night of drinking. Alcohol will put you to sleep quickly, but when it begins to wear off several hours later, the withdrawal your body feels can disrupt sleep and jolt you awake. While sleep deprivation won't by itself cause a hangover, it can definitely make the symptoms worse.
Health.com: 7 tips for the best sleep ever
If you have the luxury of "sleeping it off" the next day, do so. Your foggy brain and achy body will thank you. "The body's got an amazing capacity to heal on its own," says Cutler. In the end, the only surefire treatment for a hangover is time.
Copyright Health Magazine 2011


text: The building known today as Academy Hall was built as Troy Public School 14 in 1923. The 55,000 sq. ft. building served as an elementary school located on the corner of 15th St. and College Ave. Rensselaer first expressed interest in purchasing School 14 from the Troy City School District in 1982, but could not reach an agreement. The School District made a proposal in 1986 to sell the school property to RPI in exchange for cash and RPI property on which to build a new school. This initial proposal was turned down by RPI. A more favorable proposal was accepted in 1990; Rensselaer would acquire School 14 plus seven acres of adjoining land for $2.1 million. RPI would not take possession of the property until the new School 14 was completed. The building was renamed Academy Hall in 1998. An extensive renovation was completed in 2003 and Academy Hall now houses the Dean of Students offices, Office of the First Year Experience and the F.E. Gallagher Memorial Student Health Center .


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With the new shoes, conduit size is now selected by rotating the shoe – no longer requiring a changeover for different sizes. This reduced handling of heavy shoes also lessens the risk of ergonomic injuries when swapping shoes on the jobsite.
"We have over ten thousand triple nickel [555] benders in the field," said Sumeet Pujari, Product Manager for Bending and Pulling at Greenlee. "So we wanted to make the bending process faster, safer, and easier for these customers. These new shoes save time, reduce changeovers, and are far easier to use than the outgoing models."
New shoes are compatible with all current-line 555 benders (555C, 555CX, and 555DX) and are available for Rigid/IMC, EMT, and PVC-Coated conduit.
For detailed compatibility information, specifications, and more, contact your local Greenlee representative, visit www.greenlee.com, or call 1-800-436-0786.
About Greenlee
Greenleeis known as a global leader in the professional tool category. The Rockford, Illinois-based company develops high quality innovative products distinguished by customer-driven design and differentiated by supply chain excellence. Greenlee also leverages its powerful brands such as Greenlee Communications, Greenlee Utility, Paladin and Klauke in the electrical, construction and maintenance markets worldwide. More information is available atwww.greenlee.com.
About Textron
TextronInc. is a multi-industry company that leverages its global network of aircraft, defense, industrial and finance businesses to provide customers with innovative solutions and services. Textron is known around the world for its powerful brands such as Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft Company, Jacobsen, Kautex, Lycoming, E-Z-GO, Greenlee, and Textron Systems.
Pat Spadafore, Management Supervisor PR
Eric Mower & Associates
211 W. Jefferson Street, Syracuse, NY 13202, USA
Tel: +1 (315) 413-4360 E-Mail: [email protected]


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Check Out a DVD or Videotape for the Weekend
Did you know that students may borrow DVDs and VHS tapes from the Library for three days? The collection includes independent and mainstream titles, classic and foreign-language films, academic titles and documentaries.
The DVD collection is located on the Library's main floor. You can browse DVD titles on the shelves next to the reference collection or search for them in the catalog. Simply bring your selection to the main service counter to check it out.
To obtain a VHS tape, use the online catalog to look up its call number. Bring the title and call number to the service counter and we will retrieve it. The Library plans to relocate videotapes to the main floor, like the DVDs, at some point in the future.
You can find these titles in the library collection by using the catalog Advanced Search option. Limit format to "Video."
Check out the circulating collection of DVDs and videotapes!
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The following obituaries were received for Saturday –
Delbert Preston Byrd – Bedford
Delbert Preston Byrd, 90, of Bedford, passed away at 6:20 a.m. on Friday, February 22, 2013, at White River Lodge, Bedford.
Born February 11, 1923 in Williams, IN, he was the son of Delbert and Zetta (Kern) Byrd Hall.
He first married Ruth M. Keller on October 6, 1945; she died July 22, 1992; he then married Carolyn Ruth Manzenberger Hoskins, on October 3, 1998, and she survives.
He was a sawyer, working in several local stone mills and was Oolitic Town Marshall several years and was also a Deputy for the Lawrence Co. Sheriff's Dept., retiring in 1985. He was of the Protestant Faith and a member of the Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.), Stone City Lodge #94, Bedford.
Surviving are his wife, Carolyn Byrd, Bedford; two daughters, Pam and husband Glenn Sitzes, Bloomington and Rhonda husband Ward Harrell, of Mitchell; one grandson, Brett Sowders and wife Ginger, of Heltonville; one great granddaughter, Shelby Sowders, Heltonville; one half-sister, Fannie Hall, of Bedford; and one half-brother, Bill Hall and wife Wanda Hall, of Fayetteville.
He was preceded in death by his parents; one brother, James Byrd; and one half-brother, Roy Hall.
Funeral services will be on Monday, February 25, 2013, at 1:00 p.m. at Ferguson-Lee Funeral Home with Pastor Kenny Walden officiating. Burial will be in Green Hill Cemetery.
Friend may call on Sunday from 2 pm to 6 pm and on Monday from 11 am until the service hour, at the funeral home.
Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.fergusonlee.com.
Betty Rose (Harrison) Fields – Orleans
Betty Rose (Harrison) Fields, 92, passed away at 4:40 p.m. Thursday, February 21, 2013, at Mitchell Manor Living and Rehabilitation Center.
Born June 29, 1920, in Mitchell, she was the daughter of William Henry and Hazel Ann (McNeely) Harrison, Sr. She married Jesse E. Fields June 12, 1938, and he preceded her in death November 7, 1998. Betty was a homemaker, and a member of the First Christian Church and the Dorcas Circle. She was the 1938 salutatorian of Orleans High School.
Survivors include sons, Michael Fields and wife Janet, of Orleans, Marc Fields and wife Martha, of Mitchell, Scott Fields and wife Tonja, of Mitchell; 6 grandchildren, Eric Fields, Ann Marie Bramer, Andy Fields, Mitch Fields, Jeremy Foreman, and Keisha; 14 great grandchildren; 3 great great grandchildren; brother, William H. Harrison II, of Mitchell; sister-in-law, Georgia Slaughter, of Mitchell brother-in-law, Howard Fields and wife Wilma, of Bedford; several nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her parents; husband; and sisters, Barbara Phillips and Louise Lancaster.
Funeral service will be at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, February 26, in the Memorial Chapel of Chastain Funeral Home & Cremation Center with Bro. Andrew Bramer officiating. Burial will be in Mitchell Cemetery. Friends may call from 4 pm to 8 pm Monday and from 9:30 a.m. until the service on Tuesday at the funeral home.
Casketbeareres: Andy Fields, Mitch Fields, Jeremy Foreman, Matt Bramer, Matt Blais, Jon Bramer, and Lucas Foreman.
Memorial Gifts: First Christian Church
Condolences may be sent to the family at www.chastainfuneralhome.


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Your TV shoots back
As a diploma project, David Arenou has prototyped an augment reality game that turns your living room into a scene in a first person shooter. Here's his description:
Before beginning, the user has to set action markers and hiding places with personal furniture. It can be a chair, an armchair, an overturned coffee table: whatever wanted. After calibration, the player sits behind one of his hideouts and the game can start. The position of the body will have a direct impact on the avatar that it embodies.
When the player hides, he becomes invisible for his virtual enemies. When he uncovers himself, he can attack but becomes vulnerable to enemy bullets. Following a shooting phase, the game forces the player to change hiding place or to touch one of the markers, in order to get to a new sequence…
On his site you can see a video of the actual prototype in which he places the computer-readable markers, and crouches behind his furniture in between firing off shots at his television. Here's his concept video:
The future of gaming, the innocent-sounding origins of the apocalypse, or both?
Categories: entertainment, games dw


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This article is more than 1 year old
Spotify, DRM and the celestial jukebox
Cache for questions
With Spotify launching a new offline music player for iPhones, it has taken a big step forward to giving itself a future. Now it faces the same dilemma as Real's Rhapsody: why pay for a universal jukebox when your music will disappear when the sub runs out?
This particular universal jukebox is growing at a fantastic rate, but it's also losing money at a fantastic rate, and has no serious income - as we revealed earlier this summer. On the back of just half a million UK subscribers, Spotify was pulling in a sorry 14p per user. Only 17,000 UK users were paying a tenner a month. With songs costing at a penny per play, you can do the maths yourself.
If you're on Spotify and have played much over a dozen songs, you're costing them money. Now at last there's an incentive to pay a tenner a month - which, for Spotify, covers about a thousand plays. Most subscribers don't get anywhere near a thousand, so it can begin to cover the cost of listeners who don't pay a penny.
iPhone and iPod Touch users are in the affluent set - with the most disposable income. if Spotify can't convert this lot to paying for music, then who can?
Under wraps
But as with Rhapsody, it's a copy controlled system. You can take your music to a portable player, but it must be one approved by Spotify. Your music may not stray out into the wild as an MP3.
Spotify's storage is actually one of it's best-kept secrets - and like the best it's hidden in plain view. This has perplexed some "expert" technology sites.
"There must be some kind of data download that brings in tracks which don't appear as MP3s or as discernible tracks outside the app itself," puzzled a TechCrunch editor recently. "Could the files end up being hacked out of the application?".
The word the author was groping for was "cache" - and Spotify's encrypted cache is one of the most interesting things about it. Like the Magic Porridge Pot, the Spotify cache just keeps growing and growing - although the company does kindly offer to cap it for you at 80GB.
Spotify downloads the songs over the network using OGG format, but this is by the by. For months it's been building a parallel music collection for you, alongside your iTunes or WMP library or your plain ol' MP3 collection.
If you don't believe me, have a look for yourself. As a Mac user, peek inside ~/Library/com.spotify.client/
and there are your OGGs, obfuscated. But the TechCrunch question was a decent one to ask - what's surprising is that the usual suspects aren't raging about the injustice of it all, or that some hacker hasn't set about the task of cracking the Spotify chain just yet.
It's not as if the anti-copyright crowd are shy of using any reason (real or imagined) to feel victimized by the music business - they thrive on it.
So does this mean people love DRM all of a sudden? Or begun to tolerate it? Or stopped caring?
I'm not so sure. Most Rhapsody users I've met are extremely happy, regarding it as a jukebox with caching. Spotify users will doubtless feel the same. But a recent poll showed that the desire for no-strings-attached "ownership" of sound recordings was far higher than anyone expected. Seventy seven per cent of young music fans wanted to have an original recording in a physical format even if they were subscribed to an all-you-can-eat music service. They cited various interesting reasons.
That means there's still untapped demand from us that licensed music services aren't fulfilling. News from Real's Rhapsody, which has also submitted an iPhone application, should remind us of that. The company has around 100 employees on 750,000 paying subscribers, but laid some off earlier this month after numbers fell slightly. ®


text: In an earlier article, I argued that it's essential for photographers to carefully take the presentation of their work online into consideration. Instead of keeping things mostly theoretical, I thought I'd follow up with an article discussing examples. There probably will be considerable disagreement about what is the best presentation of photography on the web, but the following list might serve as a starting point for more discussions. Of course, the list is not supposed to be representative or complete in any kind of sense. Find the full piece here.


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A worker at the Chasm Sawmill division of West Fraser was buried to about head or chest depth in a wood shavings bin area and needed to be rescued, according to a WorkSafeBC report.
"A worker performing clean up during maintenance type work inside a bin approximately 50 to 80 feet high, 30 feet wide, was engulfed by sawdust and/or wood shavings type recovery waste product," according to the report. "The need for rescue did arise and the lone worker was engulfed and unable to self-rescue."
The incident was not immediately reported to the board and between the time of the worker being buried and the conclusion of the full investigation, work resumed.
"This employer did not immediately undertake a preliminary investigation that identified all the unsafe conditions, acts or procedures as far as possible, in order to ensure that work can be continued or resumed," according to the report. "Also, according to information provided by the employer, another worker was engulfed; however, that worker managed to self-rescue."
The report notes that West Fraser failed to ensure adequate protection from entrapment or engulfment, a serious health and/or safety hazard.
The worker who entered the wood shavings recovery type bin, "was not provided with and did not wear a lifeline and harness, and was not continuously tended by a standby person who is equipped for and capable of effecting immediate rescue."
WorkSafeBC was notified approximately one week later during a routine inspection, according to the report.
"This employer failed to ensure the scene of an accident that is reportable under subsection (1) was not disturbed, to permit investigate, and prevent potential injuries or death, and any other worker(s) being engulfed."
A preliminary investigation report was completed and provided to a WorkSafeBC officer. West Fraser has since developed and performed a risk assessment, developed a safe work procedure for entering the shavings bin and as of Nov. 21 planned an emergency drill for confined space and/or enclosed space within the next 30 days.
Part of the actions includes no entry into the bin unless the material is four feet or less.
"A Vac truck and hose system will be used from outside the bin when materials are greater than four feet."
The 100 Mile Free Press has contacted West Fraser but has not yet received a response.
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Sure, the Oscars ceremony might feature more Jews than your grandmother's Passover seder, but despite how it might seem, cinema isn't the only visual art in which Jews are prominently represented. Featuring the work of eighteen artists, Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women is the first museum exhibit to showcase autobiographical storytelling by Jewish women in this unique sub-genre. The exhibit is now in Toronto, where it will run through April 17. In 2012, the exhibit will make its way to New York's Yeshiva University Museum and University of Michigan's School of Art and Design.
Jews have long been forerunners in the medium of graphic art. In the late 1960s, Eli Katz (pseudonym Gil Kane) and Archie Goodwin pioneered an early graphic novel prototype entitled, His Name Is…Savage. Art Spiegelman's groundbreaking Maus won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for its graphic narrative depiction of Nazi Germany.
Women have been writing confessional cartoons since the 1970s, but the context has changed; the then-dominant theme of a stark gender divide has now been superseded by problems with more universal relevance. It wasn't until journalist Michael Kaminer attended a 2008 Museum of Comic Cartoon Art Expo in New York, that he noticed a curious trend of Jewish women penning autobiographical comics.
"Catholics may confess through a screen in a box, but Jews do it in public—preferably with an audience," Kaminer commented. By drawing their own screens, boxes, and frames, these women have found innovative ways to convey riotous humor, dramatic confessions, and relatable leitmotifs. After Kaminer wrote an article for The Forward about this unexpected trend, Sarah Lightman, award-winning artist and journalist, proposed turning the idea into an exhibit. The two joined forces to curate an impressive array of originally expressive and transformative work, proving that comics are not just for superheroes and children.
The international collection of artists is richly comprised of visual art veterans, cartoonists, graphic novelists, and comic newbies. While many of these hand-drawn pieces represent Jewish issues, others qualify as Jewish only because their authors identify as such.
In an interview with the Jewish Women's Archive, artist Miriam Libicki revealed that her motivation to leap into graphic artistry was deeply connected with a need to retain and externalize her sense of Jewish identity. When she moved to the Northwest from Israel, she was surrounded by a group of mostly gentile friends. Ironically, her art started to become full of Jewish references. Libicki said, "Disappearing as a Jew was a horrifying and depressing idea to me, and art, without me realizing it at first, became my way to perform my Judaism, both for myself as a daily practice, and publicly, so that Jewiness was essentially linked to my public identity." Her graphic novel, jobnik!, which centers around an American girl's experience in the Israeli army, will be available in December 2011.
Sarah Lightman's own series, Dumped before Valentine's, is featured in the exhibit. While at university, she realized that her sister and brother, Esther and Daniel, had their own books in the Bible but she did not. So she began creating "The Book of Sarah," engaging her connection to Judaism with the visual, not just the textual. It has evolved into an ongoing project full of narrative self-portraits, studies of family photographs and diary drawings. As her Jewish identity was constantly evolving, she was able to find communities of Jewish artists with whom she could share experiences. This was a perfect way to achieve her goal of contributing to Jewish life and history through culture.
Looking forward, we can keep our eyes open for upcoming work from these women as well, most of whom seem to have at least one project on the horizon. Trina Robbins, writer and "herstorian" has been writing comics and books for over thirty years and recently finished scripting a graphic novel for all ages; it tells the true story of Lily Renee Wilheim Phillips, a teenage Jewish girl who escaped the Nazis.
Michael Kaminer hopes that this unique exhibit will help people gain a new perspective on how Jews continue to reinvent comics and shape this sophisticated form of storytelling. As artists, Jews have famously found innovative ways to manifest personal definitions of Jewish identity through artistic expression. While graphic artistry may seem like an underground phenomenon, the creative outlet has proven sufficient for Jewish women who have complex stories to tell and remarkable narratives through which to confess.


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Intel Core i7 4960X (Ivy Bridge E) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 3, 2013 4:10 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Ivy Bridge
- Ivy Bridge-E
As I mentioned earlier, all of the IVB-E launch SKUs ship fully unlocked. Intel offers multipliers up to 63x for you to choose from when overclocking. Like SNB-E before it, IVB-E supports specific BCLK straps (125MHz and 166MHz, in addition to 100MHz) for those overclockers looking to get the absolute most out of their chip. At these overclocked BCLK frequencies, PCIe and other buses are properly divided down so they aren't overclocked (although if you increase the BCLK frequency beyond these strap defaults you will once again be overclocking other buses that derive their frequencies from BCLK). In practice, the cleanest/simplest way to overclock any K-series SKU is by increasing the multiplier.
In our review of the Core i7-3960X I managed a maximum stable overclock of 4.6GHz. I've been told to expect a similar average for Ivy Bridge E. Using Intel's RTS2011LC self contained/closed loop liquid cooling solution I could get into Windows 8 as high as 4.6GHz at 1.42V, however my testbed wasn't stable through all of my tests at that frequency/voltage combination. Moving to higher voltages didn't help, so I had to back down on frequency. I ultimately ended up perfectly stable at 4.3GHz, with 4.4 - 4.5GHz possible with better cooling. The added power needed to hit these frequencies was substantial. I measured a 58W increase in average load power consumption at 4.3GHz/1.4V.
From what I've seen, my sample is a bit on the disappointing side in terms of overclockability. Either way, it doesn't look like you're going to be seeing overclocks significantly higher than what was possible with SNB-E.
Power Consumption
With the 4960X delivering around 5% better performance than the 3970X, the only remaining question is how much more power efficient the move to 22nm made things. Using the same ASUS X79 Deluxe board for both parts, I was able to answer that question.
At idle there's hardly any difference between SNB-E and IVB-E. Under load it looks like IVB-E is good for around a 20W reduction in total system power. It's not an insignificant savings, but definitely not enough to warrant an upgrade if you're on SNB-E already. Anyone looking to migrate to LGA-2011 for the first time will want to go with IVB-E as it is the more thermally efficient solution.
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wsaenotsock - Tuesday, September 3, 2013 - link
How does Intel's closed-loop cooling package compare to say, Corsair's or other similar products? -
chizow - Tuesday, September 3, 2013 - link
Probably within 1-2C of similar "extra wide" 120x37mm closed-loop coolers. Looks like Intel's solution is made by Asetek going by it's block and mounting design, so I'd compare it against the Antec 920 for starters. -
Samus - Tuesday, September 3, 2013 - link
Still running i7-950 system (was an i7-920 back in 2008) and all I've upgraded since building it is a small bump in CPU speed, added water cooling, and installed two GTX660's in place of two GTX460's installed in 2010, which replaced the Radeon 4870x2 from the original 2008 assembly date. I've also replaced the original 500GB Seagate Boot Drive from 2008 with an Intel 160GB X25-M in 2010. Still use the same SSD to this day.
Same motherboard, same 6x2GB G.skill DDR3-1600 modules (that cost $600 back in 2008) and same PC Power & Cooling 750-QUAD.
I've added a USB 3.0 PCIe controller as well.
Overall, this is the longest (5 years) I've ever owned a system that retained the same motherboard. The irony is Intel discontinued Socket 1366 so fast it wasn't even funny. It was actively supported less than 2 years, and only 2 generations of chips (using the same architecture and process) were made within a year of each other, essentially giving this socket a 15-month lifetime.
But 5 years later, a system built on this socket is still faster than 90% of the production systems today. -
Assimilator87 - Tuesday, September 3, 2013 - link
Yeah, for 1366 owners, there's absolutely no reason to upgrade, especially with overclocking. At least you got one generation of upgrades, unlike 1156 owners who got completely screwed.
P.S. The second gen upgrade on 1366 (Westmere) was a new architecture and process. They shrunk down from 45nm to 32nm and added AES instructions. -
Inso-ThinkTank - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - link
I'm a current 1156 socket owner running I7 875K @ 4.2. My rig is still running strong, but I'm ready for an upgrade. Just purchase a 4960x with 16 gig of Corsair Dominator Platinum at 2400 and the Asus Black Edition mobo. Hope the spending is worth it. -
evilspoons - Tuesday, September 3, 2013 - link
What does this have to do with chizow's comment about the closed-loop cooler?? -
JPForums - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link
What does this have to do with chizow's comment about the closed-loop cooler??
Absolutely nothing. I'm guessing it was just an easy way to get posted near the top.Probably within 1-2C of similar "extra wide" 120x37mm closed-loop coolers. Looks like Intel's solution is made by Asetek going by it's block and mounting design, so I'd compare it against the Antec 920 for starters.
If I recall correctly, the 920 is 49mm thick. Also, I've found that fan selection can make more than a little difference. I would not expect the Intel cooler to match Antec's 920, given their history of racing to the bottom with cooler components. That said, it should beat the 620 and similar 120x120x25mm closed loop systems (assuming they didn't screw up the fan selection in epic manner). -
foursixty - Saturday, April 5, 2014 - link
I run a i7950 at 4.07 ghz with a overclocking thermaltake cooler, 3x 580's and 12 gb ddr, am now upgrading to the i74960x, thermaltake water 3.0 and 2 x asus gtx 780ti sli, 32 gb ddr3. the old rig is still going strong and will use it for a simulator pc as i have a g27 sitting doing nothing. Great machine and has served me well!~ -
foursixty - Saturday, April 5, 2014 - link
just might add for the asus sabertooth x79, i74960x, 32gb 2400 ddr3, and 2 asus gtx 780ti oc cards is a $4000 upgrade, been doing a lot of overtime so i thought i would update while i got the extra cash -
just4U - Friday, September 6, 2013 - link
Corsairs closed loop and Intel's appear to be built by the same company.. Some of Corsair's earlier attempts were noisy whereas you didn't really have that problem with Intel's. Overall I think it's a pretty solid contender with very few faults. There is better on the market obviously... but it's decent for it's price.


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Coconino County Building Division try's to meet a 15 working day, 1st plan review process. Once the 1st review is completed and the customer picks up the red line comments the county review time is stopped and the customer time starts. Once you have returned the review comments and a corrected plan set, the customer time stops and the county review time starts. The county building division then has 5 working days to complete the 2nd review, if everything was corrected and all other divisions have approved the permit it will be issued. This process is around 15 to 20 working days not counting the time it is in the customer hands.
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Yes, once you have set up an online account using the Online Portal, "Pay Online" is an available option. You may navigate to My Portal and My Applications to view any permits or requests that you have created that you wish to pay for. If you are not the applicant or did not initiate a permit, but wish to pay for a permit, please enter your Portal Access Code. A Permit Technician at Community Development can let you know your Portal Access Code when you call 928-679-8850.
If you prefer to bypass the portal, you may make a payment using our payment vendor's site as long as you have your permit/request number on hand. The link for this 3rd-party site is here.
When paying by phone, please have your permit number and fee dollar amount ready. You must follow the prompts to the very end and create a receipt so that it will clear in the permitting system. PLEASE NOTE THAT IT MAY TAKE ONE BUSINESS DAY FOR THE PERMITTING SYSTEM TO REFLECT YOUR PAYMENT.
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You will select the option to make a payment to the Coconino County Community Development Department. After, you will select which department/division you are making a payment for. This will be your permit type - Building, Planning & Zoning, Environmental Quality, or Engineering. If you're not sure, please contact a permit technician at 928-679-8850.
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Click here to view a brochure on how you can build a house in the county. You are allowed to build your own home given that all federal, state and local building codes and requirements are followed. An application and set of construction documents is required to be submitted for review and approval to the building division. Once the plans are approved and fees paid, you can start construction and call for routine inspections.
Accessory structures may be allowed on vacant land in certain zones within Coconino County. Please check with Community Development Planning and Zoning for which zones allow this.
Electrical service and equipment shall not be permitted on vacant land. Electrical services are only allowed to serve structures with permanent foundations. This would require Building plans that have a foundation plan, Roof framing plan, Floor plan, Electric plan, Cross Section plan, Elevation plan and a site plan. Architectural plan sets shall be drawn to ¼ inch = 1 foot scale. Site plan shall be drawn to 1 inch = 20 foot scale. Please contact the Building Division at 928-679-8850 for plan requirements. Exception: Electrical equipment for the service of a well.
A septic permit shall be issued before a building permit is issued. The septic system does not need to be complete at the time of construction but shall be completed and approved before a Certificate of Occupancy will be issued. Exception: If it is determined that the septic system is going to be approved at a later time then a building permit may be issued with a condition on approval from all divisions.
Portable sheds may be converted into single family dwellings. These structures shall be placed on a permanent foundation that meets minimum code requirements, and the structure shall be a remodel and shall comply with the International Residential Code as a single family dwelling.
Yes, Coconino County has a delegation agreement from the State Office of Manufactured Housing to issue permits for the installation of the suitable types. Mobile homes built prior to June 15. 1976 shall be rehabilitated and approved by the State Office of Manufactured Housing. "A person shall not occupy or otherwise use a mobile home which has been brought into this state or move a mobile home from one mobile home park in this state to another mobile home park in this state unless it meets the standards pursuant to the chapter and displays the proper state Rehabilitation Certificate."
The permit fee includes the manufacture home set, electric, gas, water and sewer inspections. Any structure that is add on to this permit will be a separate building permit and review process.


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When Rose Cameron spoke with Beverage Industry for its August 2012 edition, the Wat-aah founder and chief executive officer expressed the roots of her mission to convince kids that water can be a cool drink. But in order to make water the No. 1 hydration choice for kids, Cameron knows it will take building an emotional desire toward the Wat-aah brand to accomplish that goal.
"To do this effectively, we need to connect to kids in a way that is genuine, believable and contemporary," the former marketing executive explains. "We also must remember that kids today are marketing savvy, increasingly aware and informed on the world around them and have become decision makers in their own right. Put more simply, kids are smart and can easily tell if a brand is trying too hard or faking it."
In order to understand what children are looking for, Wat-aah has turned to kids for guidance and feedback, including Cameron's own boys. "We want to share the message that Wat-aah is cool and fun through print and outdoor advertising, social media, event sponsorships and concerts, celebrity partnerships as well as sports," Cameron explains.
Celebrities can play an important, influential role, Cameron acknowledges. Eight out of 10 boys and girls think a product is "cool" if a celebrity endorses or is seen with it, she adds.
Wat-aah has embraced the positive effect this could have on its mission and has developed numerous collaborations and partnerships since Wat-aah launched in 2008. Those partnerships have included teen stars like Willow Smith, OMG Girlz, Diggy Simmons, Cody Simpson and the Jonas Brothers, as well as recognizable celebrities such as Keri Hilson, Nick Cannon and Beyoncé Knowles through the Let's Move Flash Workout campaign, Cameron explains.
But those aren't the only relationships Wat-aah incorporates into its marketing platforms. The company also has partnerships with professional football players Marques Colston, a wide receiver for the New Orleans Saints, and Patrick Peterson, a cornerback for the Arizona Cardinals.
"Both of them came to us through Legacy Growth Partners two years ago," Cameron says. "They saw the brand and witnessed its power to attract kids. They stand behind our mission to fight obesity and believe in our strategy to make drinking water and living healthy a cool concept to kids."
Colston and Peterson both echo those sentiments. "A lot of factors influenced me in partnering with Wat-aah, but its ongoing mission to fight childhood obesity made it clear that this was a brand I could probably stand behind," Colston says.
Peterson adds: "I was first introduced to Wat-aah by a fellow NFL athlete. When I saw that Wat-aah was all about staying healthy and spreading that message to kids, I knew it would be a perfect fit."
Cameron notes that because athletes are known for their commitments to their health, sports, communities, education and families, they make ideal partnerships for Wat-aah.
"They are fantastic role models for kids," she says. "We know that they can influence kids in a very positive way starting with engaging them to make healthy choices and encouraging them to play sports and make physical activity part of their daily routine to overcoming obstacles, aiming higher and attaining their dreams. What more can we ask for?"
To spread that message, both Colston and Peterson have been working with Wat-aah on special programs. For example, Colston and Wat-aah teamed up last fall with Louisiana-based charity AMIkids and specially designed a limited-edition bottle, Wat-aah #12, which was sold exclusively at Rouses Supermarkets.
"Not only did a portion of proceeds go toward helping the ongoing work AMIkids does in the community with troubled youth, but together we were able to spread a greater message — one of health, empowerment, positivity and, most importantly, perseverance through difficult times," Colston explains.
Peterson notes that up until recently his work with Wat-aah has been in the Arizona marketplace, but given its national footprint, he'll be spreading the message of healthy hydration in new places including his home state of Louisiana and his home away from home, Florida.
Peterson adds that he understands the effect celebrities and sports figures can have on products, and the fact that he is able to do something in a healthy, positive way with Wat-aah is a win-win.
Understanding that athletes' biggest fans are kids, Colston explains that he tries to keep that in mind when working with a brand and its initiatives.
"From working with local charities, to growing distribution, to helping with Wat-aah's annual Move Your Body event, I know that my participation will help get the right message across to kids," he says. "That's something I feel good about."
Going forward into 2013, Wat-aah will continue to spread its message about making water a part of a healthy lifestyle and for the first-time ever, will run a national TV ad campaign featuring teen celebrities from the music industry, Wat-aah will also celebrate the third year of its Move Your Body event in support of the Let's Move campaign, which will take place in May, Cameron explains.
"With participation from over 600 schools, along with celebrity guests and athletes, kids will get up and dance to show their support and commitment to health," she says. "Of course Marques and Pat will be helping us lead this event in their respective communities."


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Kidnapping aid workers: part of Sudan's strategy?
| Cairo
The kidnapping of three Western aid workers in Sudan's Darfur region marks a significant escalation of insecurity for relief agencies deployed in the conflict-ridden area.
Canadian nurse Laura Archer, Italian doctor Mauro D'Ascanio, and French coordinator Raphaël Meunier, as well as their Sudanese watchman Sharif Mohamadin, all working for Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, were safely released Saturday by unknown gunmen after three days in captivity.
A rebel leader and analysts say the kidnapping and recent expulsion of 13 aid groups are part of a government strategy to scare away remaining aid workers and break up camps housing Sudanese civilians who have fled the war.
"This is the plan of Khartoum," the capital and seat of the Sudanese government, says Abdul Wahid al-Nour, the founder of the Sudan Liberation Movement, one of several rebel factions in Darfur fighting the government over claims that their people have been marginalized. Mr. Nour says the government is trying to force nongovernmental organizations out – "either by expelling them directly or terrorizing them."
The strategy, he argues, is to punish the people of Darfur, a semiarid land along Sudan's western border with Chad, where mostly non-Arab rebels have been fighting the Arab-dominated government since 2003. That punishment, he says, is either "directly" with attacks by Russian-made bomber planes and government-sponsored janjaweed militia – accused of some of the worst atrocities in Darfur – or "indirectly, by cutting off a lifeline to them, which is medication and food."
Sudan's government denies any involvement in the kidnapping. Sudanese officials told the Associated Press Saturday that they will increase protection for aid groups operating in Darfur. But aid groups generally resist such armed protection, viewing it as a violation of their impartiality.
Darfur was home to the world's largest humanitarian operation until the government last week expelled 13 aid organizations from the country – a move that sparked criticism from the United Nations and the Western world. The expulsion followed this month's decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to charge Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with war crimes.
At a time when Sudan is lobbying to have the case against its president dropped and needs international support, why would one of Africa's most fragile countries choose the path of confrontation?
"The government was angry and chose the most vulnerable target," says one Western analyst who has studied Sudan for close to two decades.
It could also have been a way of proving that the government is still in control, despite the indictment.
Part of the rationale for expulsion was "to follow through with its threats and show the international community that the arrest warrant is counterproductive for Darfur," says Wolfram Lacher, a Sudan analyst at Control Risks Group, a business risk consultancy.
Kicking the NGOs out could also have been out of genuine fear. According to Sudan expert Alex de Waal, program director at the New York-based Social Science Research Council, the ICC prosecutor publicly indicated that much of his information came from NGOs; and aid agencies lobbied the Security Council in favor of the arrest warrant [Editor's note: The original version misidentified Alex de Waal. He is not Sudanese.].
The Sudanese government believes there "is a conspiracy for peaceful regime change. The ICC is part of it. The NGOs could be part of it," Mr. de Waal says. "They genuinely believe that the NGOs were passing information to the ICC."
Some observers say that the expulsions and kidnapping were strategic.
"It is of course interesting to speculate whether this is a targeted attack designed to create a level of insecurity which causes us to rethink [our presence in Darfur]," says one aid worker in Sudan who asked for anonymity to avoid jeopardizing colleagues. "It is no secret that there are plenty of elements in the government who would prefer us all to leave."
Why? Getting rid of aid workers would help dissolve the dozens of camps in Darfur that house some 2.7 million people displaced by the conflict, who come for safety and humanitarian relief. The government says the camps are bastions of instability, where rebels are fed and housed and their weapons illegally harbored.
"The government still wants to win the war," says Colin Thomas-Jensen, policy adviser, at the Washington-based Enough project, which aims to prevent genocide. "They want to make the humanitarian situation go away."
By decreasing the level of aid in the camps, he says, the government will force people to leave, removing threats to its security and reducing rebel recruitment grounds. Driving out aid workers would also ensure that no one was around to watch if violence broke out.
"It's quite likely [the government] wants to break up Kalma [camp], because it's a security threat," de Waal says of Darfur's largest and most volatile camp, which houses some 88,000 displaced Darfuris. The UN says Sudanese forces killed 31 civilians last August when they tried to enter the camp in search of illegal weapons. "By expelling NGOs, you remove the main witnesses of whatever happens."
The expulsion of international NGOs from Sudan was not, as it may have appeared, the reaction from an angry, vulnerable president.
Within minutes of the March 4 announcement that President Bashir was wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, aid workers said at least six NGOs in Khartoum received phone calls requesting immediate meetings with the government's relief body, the Humanitarian Aid Commission in Khartoum.
Within the hour, some had already received letters revoking their licenses to operate. By the end of the day, in total 10 NGOs had been expelled. By the next day, three others had followed suit. Relatively speaking, the NGOs say, it was quite an organized operation.
The government accused the aid groups of being spies, conspiring with the ICC against the Sudanese president and threatening the country's national security.
Precisely a week later, a group of armed men took the three Western aid workers in northern Darfur, holding them hostage for three days, before releasing them unharmed. Both Doctors Without Borders and the government said they paid no ransom for their release.
At first, the government said the kidnappers were bandits. Now, North Darfur's governor Mohammed Osman Kibir says the group he identified as Eagles of Al Bashir, acted out of anger over the ICC decision.
Analysts say these abductions could also have been organized by the state's security services. According to one analyst, the kidnappers wore military uniform and were likely former Janjaweed militia who had been integrated into the state structure as border guards or Central Reserve Police.
"The fact that they entered the compound, that they abducted these people without looting the place, and that they were wearing camouflage – these aren't just bandits," he says. "There is plenty of banditry. This is something different."
This could just be a conspiracy theory. Darfur is an unstable place, home to armed peacekeepers, government troops, allied militia, and a myriad of different rebel factions, who have frequently turned against one another.
Most of the numerous carjackings and ambushes in the region are attributable to rebels trying to gain vehicles and communications equipment, international peacekeepers and aid workers say. "It's a very tense time and that's being exploited by various, nefarious actors on the ground," a US State Department official says.
The government says suggestions of its involvement in the kidnapping are "absolutely false," noting that it was instrumental in negotiating the aid workers' release.


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At MemorialCare Health System, we believe in providing extraordinary healthcare to our communities and an exceptional working environment for our employees. Memorial Care stands for excellence in Healthcare. Across our family of medical centers, we support each one of our bright, talented employees in reaching the highest levels of professional development, contribution, collaboration and accountability. Whatever your role and whatever expertise you bring, we are dedicated to helping you achieve your full potential in an environment of respect, inno
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The Center for X-Ray Optics is a multi-disciplined research group within Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's (LBNL) Materials Sciences Division (MSD). Notice to users.
"Multilayer films are a vital component of many EUV and soft x-ray optical systems. We strive to improve on existing multilayer technologies while exploring and developing new systems for research and commerical applications."
Eric Gullikson,
Principal Investigator
Traditional refractive lenses don't work with x-ray and EUV light because absorption is too high. To bend and focus light at these wavelengths, optical systems must employ reflective or diffractive lenses. However, to be reflective to x-rays and EUV light at normal incidence, mirrors need special coatings called 'multilayers' that contain alternating layers of materials only a few atoms thick.
By tailoring layer thicknesses and overall structure, the reflectivity and optical properties can be customized for many applications. In order to work with high efficiency, and maintain the correct phase of the reflected light, layer thicknesses have to be reliably controlled to the level smaller than the width of a single atom.
Multilayers can be designed to reflect different frequencies at different depths, enabling attosecond pulse compression. They can also be designed to reflect broadband light using an aperiodic layer structure (shown to the left).
CXRO has been making, testing and utilizing multilayer x-ray mirrors since 1984. CXRO has made major contributions to understanding the physics and chemistry of these devices, and to their utilization in optical systems for a variety of research fields, including x-ray astronomy, plasma spectroscopy, x-ray lasers and synchrotron radiation research.
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Cottage Roses
by Ginger Blue Decor
Save 30% on our frames if you bundle now!
Stroll through this country side scene and smell the floral aroma of these Cottage Roses. A gorgeous piece of art made to brighten any interior space!
(Outside Dimensions) Small Magnet 5.75" x 5.75" | Small Frame 10" x 10" | Large Magnet 11.5" x 11.5" | Large Frame 16" x 16" | XL Magnet 23" x 23" | XL Frame 28" x 28"
Barnwood Frames Our frames are all made from centuries old barnwood. We have removed every board by hand and removed every nail. Cracks , splits, nail holes and uneven surfaces are common to this wood. We will make every attempt to make sure that despite this fact your frame will be "perfect" if not we will make every effort to fix the problem.
Our Crown frames are made from pine and moulded in a 2" crown pattern.
Our classic frames are embossed metal centers (not flat except for the center where the magnet is placed) surrounded by our crown 2" frames